Yom Kippur Morning Sermon – 2021/5782

By Rabbi Mark Glickman

There are many rabbis who choose a single theme to drive all of their Days of Awe sermons each year. I typically don’t do that – at least not intentionally – but this year, one seems to have emerged on its own. The theme: “It has been a hell of a year.”

I don’t need to recount all of the biological, sociological, economic, emotional, and spiritual factors that have made this year so difficult – you lived them all yourselves. What I will note is the frustration that many of us – particularly here in Alberta – have felt in recent weeks over the fact that this pandemic could have been far closer to its end had more of us worn masks and gotten vaccines in our arms. Sadly, as you know, some of our neighbours have refused to do so, the resistance is growing in both magnitude and volume, and we’re all suffering as a result.

I’m not a physician, so this sermon won’t tout the medical benefits of masks and vaccinations. The medical community has already rendered those benefits an established fact. I am, however, a rabbi, so I would like to share with you a few comments about this situation from a Torah perspective.

First, as the leaders of most Jewish denominations from left to right have affirmed, getting vaccinated and wearing masks are sacred religious obligations. There is a concept in Jewish law that our Temple board and staff have cited in many letters and emails to you about our COVID-19 policies – it’s called pikuach nefesh. This refers to the fact that, according to Jewish law, you break almost any commandment in order to save a human life. There are a few exceptions: you’re not allowed to murder someone or commit idolatry or incest under any circumstances, but even those exceptions (particularly the idolatry one) become a little fuzzy when these laws get applied. Overall, however, saving people’s lives – and even protecting people against a potential risk to their lives – is primary in Jewish law. In Judaism, you do anything you need to do – anything – in order to save people’s lives and protect them from danger.

Many anti-vaxers and anti-maskers these days object that masking and vaccination requirements impinge on their freedoms. To this, Judaism has a clear reply: You bet they impinge on your freedoms, because in a civilized society, you’re not free to kill people, and you’re not free to imperil their lives. We limit freedoms all over the place, because that’s how we reduce unfair harm to other people. The medical community has shown us beyond a doubt that masks and jabs save lives, and Judaism rightly points out that this renders all discussions of freedom moot.

In fact, to tell you the truth, Judaism doesn’t really care about freedom. In Canadian law, of course, we have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and I grew up in the United States studying the Bill of Rights – for a couple of centuries now, rights and freedoms have been a common theme in Western Law. In Judaism, however, we don’t have a Charter of Rights or a Bill of Freedoms. Instead, the most widely known and widely celebrated passage of our scripture is the Ten Commandments, and we Jews spend a lot of time thinking about how to do mitzvot. Mitzvot are commandments, and Jewish scripture has 613 of them.

The central question of Jewish life, in other words, is not what we get to do, but what we should do. And particularly during times of worldwide crisis such as this, it is essential that we keep this question in mind. Clearly, Canadian law, as well as the laws of most other countries, give you the right to go around unmasked, and they give you the right not to get vaccinated…but who cares? The question we Jews should be asking – and here I’ll say the question we all should be asking – is “What should we do?” And what we should do is get vaccinated.

Uvacharta bachayyim, the Torah tells us – Choose life! Without qualification. It doesn’t tell us to choose life as long as it’s comfortable. And it doesn’t tell us to choose life as long as it’s convenient. And it certainly doesn’t tell us to choose freedom before we choose life.

Vaccines and masks save lives. Period. That, our tradition teaches, should be the end of the discussion. They are important for us all, even at the cost of a few minor elements of our personal freedoms. Get vaccinated; wear a mask. It is your sacred obligation.

My second comment comes as a result of the nauseating increase in the number of people these days who are turning to religion to justify their resistance to masks and vaccinations. Even though, thankfully, most major religious denominations have called for their adherents to get their shots and cover their faces, still there are those who resist taking these steps in the very name of religion. You see it locally, as churches and religious leaders here in town openly defy masking mandates and other COVID restrictions. They say that God will take care of us provided that we pray, as if we have no obligation to the health of our community. They say that faith rather than medicine will bring true healing. They say that vaccines bring contamination rather than safety for us all. One of these churches actually approached us here at Temple asking to rent our facilities. Needless to say, their request didn’t go very far.

Everywhere, people are seeking religious exemptions to allow their children to go to school unmasked and unvaccinated.  In fact, the state of Vermont in the U.S. used to allow both religious and non-religious exemptions for the vaccinations of their schoolchildren. Recently, however, they removed the non-religious exemption, so that the only way you could get out of having your kid vaccinated was for religious reasons. And the moment they did that – wouldn’t you know it – the number of Vermonters who had gotten religion suddenly jumped more than sevenfold, and many people rightly began wondering whether this was really about religion in the first place.

It’s almost as if, in many peoples’ minds saying that something is based on your religion is supposed to give it automatic credence – automatic immunity from all logic and ethical obligations. Because it’s your religion, you have the right to imperil me? Because it’s your religion you have the right to delay our return as a society to normal life? Because it’s your religion, you have the right to infect me with your viruses? To all of these questions I say no, and I add a request that you please stop making these arguments because they all give religion a very bad name.

Look, we can disagree about a lot with those who adhere to other religions. We can agree to disagree about what day of the week the Sabbath should be, and whether belief or deeds are most important, or even about whether the messiah has come yet. I do it all the time in my interfaith work, and I love it. But this doesn’t mean that we should give automatically give credence to every single religious view. As a teacher of mine once said, we should be open minded, but not so open minded that our brains fall out. Even in Judaism, while we don’t expect non-Jews to agree with everything, there are certain religious obligations that our tradition says apply to all people – Jews and non-Jews alike. These are the “Noachide Laws,” the seven commandments given to Noah and his descendants – to all of us, in other words. You’re not allowed to murder; there must be a community-wide system of justice; you can’t be cruel to animals. There are a few others, too. The point is that, even as we disagree, Judaism teaches that there is fundamental code of human decency to which we should hold all people accountable. And if their religion teaches otherwise – that gratuitous bloodshed is OK, for example, or that injustice is permissible, or that incest should be allowed – then their religion is wrong.

This is particularly important at a time such as this. When people argue that their religion allows practices that endanger us, when people suggest that God wants them to prioritize their own freedoms over the safety of others, when people describe life-saving vaccines as impure and unholy – then we should respond without hesitation that they and their religions are wrong.

Let me mince no words. Any religion that fails to prioritize human life is a bad religion. Any religion that encourages its adherents to unnecessarily imperil others’ health and safety is a bad religion. And any religion that demands its adherents check their brains at the door of their church, mosque, or synagogue is certainly a bad religion, too. We rightly tend to be wary of using such language, but if we can’t ever use it, then we might as well throw away the central teachings of our own Jewish traditions. If every religious idea is of equal value, then none of them are worth a damn to begin with.

So observe Shabbat on Tuesday, for all I care – if you don’t choose life, then your religion has no part in contemporary public discourse. Celebrate National Cucumber Day as your most solemn religious holiday if you want, but if your religion advocates policies that unnecessarily endanger people’s lives and livelihoods, then please don’t sully my public square with your destructive religious ideas. And if, in the name of your religion, you are going to reject science, reject medicine, and reject the great achievements and innovations of the human mind, then please know that I and people like me will oppose the imposition of your religious will however we possibly can. As a Jew who takes my Judaism seriously, I have no other choice.

Finally, most of us know people who refuse to mask or get vaccinated. What are we supposed to do in response? How can we talk to these people…especially since they so often seem to speak such a different language from the rest of us?

Well, for starters, to persuade them, I would not suggest that you share this sermon with them. Take it from me, the whole “bad religion” thing, the whole “check your brain at the door” thing…they tend not to be very effective rhetorical tools with these people.

Instead, I would suggest that you approach these people with love rather than rhetoric – with patience and sensitivity rather than with argument, for even the most ironclad arguments tend not to do much good here.

Let’s remember that even if there are no good arguments against vaccinations and masking, there are reasons the opponents feel the way they do, and we need to strive to understand them. Many who are reluctant, hesitant or refusing to get vaccinated are members of minority cultural and ethnic groups who have deep seated mistrust of public institutions. Their distrust is destructive, of course, but understanding it and being sensitive to it can be among our most powerful tools to combat it. Others are part of the majority culture, but feel threatened for other reasons, and still others find support, friendship, and solidarity in the community of their fellow mask and vaccine resistors. For them, such support, friendship, and solidarity are gifts more precious than gold. Some people suffer from skewed thinking, prioritizing freedom and autonomy over our obligations to ourselves and one another.  For them, patient and respectful dialogue will be key.

It’s difficult, of course, because, if you’re like me, your initial reaction is sometimes to scream at these people or to wring these people’s necks rather than engage in patient dialogue. Those responses might feel good for a moment, but they’re not likely to do much good.

Instead, let’s take the lead from the Talmud as to how to conduct what it called a “machloket l’shem shamayim,” a disagreement for the sake of heaven. The Talmud’s model for this was the School of Hillel, the ancient sage whose students always argued with their arch-rivals, the School of Shammai. In almost every case, the final decisions about Jewish law went with Hillel’s arguments, not Shammai’s. Why? Because Hillel’s students were kind and gracious, and because they always made sure to understand Shammai’s views completely, even going so far as to teach those opposing views before their own.

In other words, they were gentle; they listened – carefully; they argued to learn, not to preach. And in so doing, they were disagreeable, but disagreeable in a holy manner, disagreeable in just the way that God wanted.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that we need to become doormats. Arguing against and opposing bad ideas is a matter that is nothing short of life and death these days. And it’s imperative that we advocate for safety on behalf of all of our public institutions.

But with individuals, we need a kinder strategy. Let’s approach these people gently, and with open ears, minds, and hearts. Let’s approach them with love.  It’s unlikely to bring sudden change, it might not bring change at all, and whatever impact you do have will likely take a lot of time and energy.  But they too are children of God, they too have much to teach, and even though they are mistaken, demonizing them won’t achieve a thing – only humanizing them will.

It has been a hell of a year. And just when we thought things were about to get better, they got worse again. We can fix this, my friends – the virus is strong, but we can be stronger, and overcoming it will demand that we all do our parts. It is a herculean task, but I have faith that we can succeed. To do so, let’s cover our faces and get those shots, let’s resist the exploitation of God’s name for unholy purposes. Let’s thank our health care workers rather than make their lives more difficult, and let’s argue with love and respect.

On this day of awe and turning, we dare not abdicate these sacred responsibilities.

Shanah Tovah

Erev Yom Kippur Sermon – 2021/5782

By Rabbi Mark Glickman

A phrase that is reportedly an ancient Chinese curse says, “May you live in interesting times.”  Well it turns out that that phrase isn’t ancient, and it’s not Chinese, either. Rather, it was probably coined by the British statesman, Joseph Chamberlain sometime around the turn of the last century. Nevertheless, I think we’d all agree that, whoever uttered that curse, we who are alive today do live in interesting times.

I could enumerate some of the many ways these times are interesting, but I don’t think you need me to do that. Instead, all I’d like to note tonight is that while, for us Jews, these times are indeed…interesting, they are also wonderful. Yes, we face challenges – challenges galore: assimilation and apathy, rising antisemitism, growing illiteracy about Jewish topics, and much more. But amidst all of these troubles, it’s easy for us to blind ourselves to the riches of contemporary Jewish life. Yes, many Jews are assimilating, but Jewish communities everywhere are experiencing dramatic rebirth. Everywhere you look, there are Jewish camps, and schools, and organizations of all kinds. Synagogues are thriving despite the fact that nobody’s been able to walk through their doors for much of the past few years. And for the past couple of decades, there’s even been a liberal Jewish rabbinical and cantorial seminary near Berlin – Berlin! – the Abraham Geiger College, and this year it moved to a brand-new campus in Potsdam. Yes, antisemitism is rising to new levels, but those levels aren’t nearly as high as they were as recently as the middle of the last century.

And then, of course, there is one of the greatest blessings of all – the modern State of Israel.

Now, I spoke to you about Israel when we gathered here a couple years ago. I noted how difficult it is to speak about this topic. I shared the story of a very difficult discussion about Israel on the part of our congregational leaders. I encouraged you to talk about Israel rather than yell at each other about it, to remember that Israel should receive both our love and our criticism, that people who are critical of Israel don’t necessarily hate it, and that people who love Israel don’t necessarily see it as perfect, and even they can criticize it in good faith.

But still, this topic has remained a very difficult one for our congregation. Still, people pull me aside and say things like, “Rabbi, I don’t like everything Israel does…am I allowed to voice my disagreement at Temple?” Others say, “Rabbi, I am a Zionist to the depths of my heart, but lately, with everyone so down on Israel, I’m scared to sound like too much of a Zionist at Temple. My views don’t seem to fit in with everyone else’s.”

And when I hear these concerns from across the spectrum, I want to say, “But how can you still feel this way? I gave a SERMON about this – TWO years ago! A SERMON!  So shouldn’t we be done with this already?

Alas, Israel remains a difficult topic for us here at Temple, so, in preparation for tonight, I decided to give that sermon from two years ago again. Then, I thought better of that decision, but I do want to share some additional thoughts tonight. Specifically, I’d like to make three suggestions – suggestions for what I think we should all do with regard to Israel not only to render it easier to discuss, but also to help play the most effective role that we Jews in 5782 can play with regard to it.

Suggestion number 1: Love Israel. Now, I know that some of you already love Israel, and if you don’t, then my telling you to love it is likely to be about as successful as it was for me to tell my kids to love Brussels sprouts. So maybe I should amend my this and suggest instead that you appreciate Israel, and appreciate it deeply. (But in my heart of hearts, I really hope you can love Israel, too.)

Let’s remember that despite all the politics, and despite the ugliness we see about it in the news, the very existence of an independent Jewish state in our people’s ancient homeland is an astounding reality. As of 1948, for the first time in almost 2000 years, there is a country that lives according to the rhythms of Jewish time. Where Hebrew is the spoken language. Where not only the accountants and the bankers and the merchants are Jewish, but also the trash collectors and the custodians and the pickpockets, too. This has never been the case since the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70!

Early Zionists – the dreamers and builders and organizers of the movement that would culminate in the creation of the State of Israel – disagreed about a lot, but the dream that most of them shared was of a country where any Jew could go to live in safety and security. Israel has never been completely secure, of course, but that dream of a country where Jews could live with their heads held high has largely become a reality. As soon as its war of independence ended in 1948, hundreds of thousands of oppressed Jews from Arab countries – Egypt, Morocco, Iraq, and others – moved to the relative safety of the fledgling Jewish state, and now their descendants number in the millions. In the 1980s, when famine struck the Jews of Ethiopia, there was a mass airlift of Jews from that country to Israel. After the fall of the Soviet Union, hundreds of thousands of its Jews were able to immigrate to Israel and build new lives there. Israel’s national anthem is Hatikvah – the hope – and the mere existence of this tiny country has indeed given hope to millions of Jews who might not otherwise have had it.

Think about it. Right now, because of Israel, you can get onto Netflix and download TV shows to watch at home…in Hebrew. A hundred and fifty years ago, such a thing would have been unthinkable, and that’s not just because back then there were no Net and no flicks, but more so because 150 years ago, there was no language called modern Hebrew. It didn’t get updated from its ancient form until around the turn of the last century. And even if the language had existed, the notion of dramas featuring Jewish people dealing with Jewish issues on Jewish terms wouldn’t have been seen as marketable back then. Culturally speaking, many Jews felt they had to hide in the corner back then, coming out into the open only after first shedding anything that made them openly and distinctively Jewish.

But now, with Israel on the map, that’s no longer the case. Israel has played a huge role in revitalizing Jewish culture everywhere. Jews everywhere now walk with their heads held a bit higher than they did before 1948, and among those we can thank for this is Israel.

And let’s remember, Israel’s existence isn’t a given, certainly not in its current form, and if things had gone just a little differently at countless points along the way, history could have turned out very, very differently. For example, the person who put modern Zionism on the map starting in the 1890s was the renowned, dashingly charismatic journalist, Theodore Herzl. Herzl, however, while Jewish, wasn’t a very religious man, and his vision of the Jewish state wasn’t very…well…it wasn’t very Jewish. The country he foresaw would be a state for Jewish people, of course, but he seemed to envision it as a western-style democracy, one whose citizens would speak European languages and whose government would operate similar to other western democracies thriving at the time.

In fact, he almost accepted an offer from the British to build the Jewish homeland in Uganda rather than the land of Israel. Wouldn’t that have been a different turn of events. And interestingly, the British official who brought Herzl the Uganda offer was the Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, the very same man who coined the term, “May you live in interesting times.” Interesting times, indeed.

Similarly, Israel’s existence has been threatened over and over and over again since its creation, and were it not for the skill of Israel’s diplomats, the bravery and devotion of its soldiers, and the resolute commitment of its populace, not to mention the support of worldwide Jewry, the state might not exist right now. And without it, Jews from Arab lands, Jews from Ethiopia, Jews from former Soviet Union, and others might be faring far worse now than they actually are. And, without it, the efflorescence of art, culture, scholarship, and Jewish life represented by the modern State of Israel wouldn’t have come about.

Israel’s existence is not a given. It needs the ongoing commitment of us all in order to continue to thrive and flourish. I can’t make you love it. But I can remind you of its significance and of its primary role in making this a golden age for worldwide Jewry. And I can hope you love it, because it is indeed an awesome development in the history of our people – one that I love very, very much.

Suggestion #2 is that you criticize Israel – at least when it needs and deserves criticism.  You probably know that Israel has plenty of supporters both within its borders and beyond who say that we in the Diaspora are in no place to disparage the acts of the Jewish State because we don’t live there. “It’s the Israelis’ necks that are on the line,” they argue, “not yours. And if you want to complain about what they do, move there first.”

However heartfelt that argument might be, it’s also a silly one. Israel has always described itself as the Jewish state, and as a Jewish state, all of us – both those who live there, and those bound to it by the bonds of history and love that connect us all – have a stake it what happens there. Yes, we need to defend Israel against threats to its existence, and this is precisely why we need to criticize it sometimes, for there are moments when those threats come from within its borders and from the actions of its own citizens, as well as from its enemies abroad. What? Are we supposed to defend Israel only from its external enemies, but not from its internal ones? To do so would be utterly hypocritical.

For example, let’s look at the violence that happened not long ago in Gaza. Hamas fired rockets toward Israeli towns, most of which, thank God, the Iron Dome defense system was able to intercept. Israel fired back with rockets of its own, many of which hit their targets, and some of which, tragically, killed civilians in the process. We can argue about individual targets, and about some of the details of Israel’s tactics, but many people throughout the world would deny Israel the right to defend itself, arguing that Israel should have just let Hamas kill its soldiers and civilians without responding at all. Such criticism effectively calls Israel to stand by while terrorists murder its civilians. It’s a criticism that’s unfair, and often downright antisemitic.

However, it is also true that Israel’s continued occupation under military rule of the lands it conquered in 1967 played a significant role in creating the atmosphere that led to this violence. The collective hands of the Arabs are far from clean, of course, but Israel could have done more to foster a commitment to peaceful coexistence than it actually did. Since 1967, there have been countless human rights violations in those territories, and Israeli policies of settlement of those lands have deepened the conflict at the very time that Israel could have taken steps to quiet it. Israeli steps toward peace won’t work without Arab cooperation, of course, but Israel could have done more in recent years to take those steps. And now, with a new government in place, let’s hope that this is what happens.

The point, however, is that people who love Israel should criticize Israel when they see the state doing unwise things. Holding our tongues – not criticizing – on the other hand, isn’t love, it’s just being a doormat. When my kids do things they shouldn’t (not that they ever do), they’re going to hear from me about it. They’re going to hear from me because I love them and I care about them. Now that they’re adults, they’re also going to do what they want, of course, but I wouldn’t be a loving father if I didn’t share what I think. My love for them is forever; that’s why I sometimes do what I can to knock some sense into them. The same is the case with Israel.

So, suggestion number one is to love Israel, and suggestion number two is to criticize it. But suggestion number three is the most exciting one of all, and it’s one that a few of your fellow congregants and I are going to help you keep. Suggestion number three is that you go to Israel.

So much of what we know about the Jewish state is what we see on TV, but what we see on TV are only the bombs and the violence and the conflict. Anybody who has been to Israel, however, knows that Israel is far more than that. In fact, with respect to daily life, very little of Israel is bombs and bloodshed. Instead, Israel is kids going to school every day, and moms and dads going into the office. Israel is Saturdays off and Sundays as a regular workday. Israel is walking outside the Old City in Jerusalem, picking up a handful of dirt from your path, and finding several shards of centuries-old pottery sitting on your palm. Israel is going to the Western Wall, rolling your eyes at the medieval excesses of ultra-Orthodox Jews, only to realize a moment later that you are standing at a spot hallowed by thousands of years of Jewish history. Israel is debates between its political left and its political right over what to do with the occupied territories and how to treat its Arab minorities. Israel is Yad Vashem, the largest Holocaust memorial in the world, and Israel is three-year-old kids whose Hebrew is far better than most of ours ever will be. Israel is falafel and hummus and kosher hamburgers at McDonalds. Israel is the bright colors of its southern desert, and the beautiful hues of the Galilee in the north. Israel is the only country where its basketball play-by-play features commentators saying things like “…and Schwartz passes to Goldstein, who feeds it back to Rabinovitch, who lays it up for the score!” Israel is archeology, and modern Jewish life, and a sense of Hatikvah – the hope for the future – all sitting side by side.

Israel is all these things and more. And in just over a year, we’re going to go there together. In a trip led by me, by Jeff and Helen Faber, and by Peter Driftmier, we are going to travel to this old-new land of our people, and we’re going to experience it for ourselves. We’re going to see its sights, we’re going to meet its people, we’re going to eat its food, and then we’ll eat some more of its food. We’ll experience Shabbat in the homes of Israeli citizens. We’ll go to safe areas of the occupied territories, and meet with Palestinians and with Israelis from both the political left and the political right. We’ll have some of those glorious Israeli breakfasts, and we might even sip some of its delicious wine. And those of us who go, will come back and share with our fellow Temple members some of what we learned and experienced while we were there. And you know what? We might even deepen our friendships along the way.

Helping us plan this trip is Rabbi Don Goor, a colleague of mine who currently lives in Israel and works with congregations through Daat World Travel to plan excursions such as this. (By the way, Rabbi Goor’s first pulpit as a student rabbi was here at Temple B’nai Tikvah during the 1980s.) The trip will take place in October of next year, and you’ll be getting details about it soon. I hope you’ll come with us to Israel – it promises to be the experience of a lifetime!

We live in a time in which there exists for the first time in millennia, an independent Jewish state in the ancestral homeland of our people. It is a magnificent, flawed, exciting, fearful, spectacularly scenic, and absolutely infuriating place, and I thank God that we’re here to be a part of it. It is partly because of the State of Israel that we do live in interesting times – extraordinary ones, even. Let’s support one another as we love Israel and criticize Israel, and next fall, let’s go there together. Doing all these things is the way we make the hope real.

Shanah Tovah